


Stockholm, Second Degree

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Stockholm [2]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris, Red Dragon - Thomas Harris
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:31:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I've kinda already started. But we could continue together, if it's all right." There was something ridiculously familiar about that crook of mouth, as if he knew it. Maybe he just wanted to know it, and that was better than wanting to take him back to his hotel room and follow the instincts that had been creeping up on him for hours now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stockholm, Second Degree

**Author's Note:**

> And a second attempt to play with Stockholm Syndrome in these two.

_Go home, Will. Go home to your boats and your dreams of blood and your neurotic worries about the nature of the beast, and give unto the FBI what is theirs._

He wasn't sure if those statements had been meant as a kindness to save him or a curse to damn him. Either way, he didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know how to make himself go home instead of drifting, lost and alone and fucked up in Brazil during Carnival.

At least he wasn't the only one lost, or alone, or fucked up. Most everybody seemed to be one or the other at the moment, although they all seemed a hell of a lot happier about it than he felt. Maybe he was just as crazy as they'd all claimed; Molly, Jack, the shrink he'd been seeing off and on until he decided to chase Hannibal again.

When a cannibalistic serial killer tried to send a man home, it was a bad fucking sign.

He was tired just thinking about it, and the booze and the cacophony and the glitter and feathers weren't appealing just then because he'd come to sacrifice himself to Hannibal, whatever that got him, and nothing. Nothing, and he didn't know where to turn anymore. He'd sold the boat, sold pretty much everything he had to chase him down.

There wasn't anything to go back to. Getting drunk seemed like the best start to pretty much everything, and so he turned around and started pushing his way through the crowds in search of that.

Four steps in, he bumped into somebody head on, nearly knocking them over. His hands reached out, catching on a bony elbow, a hip. "Sorry." He looked, scanned the man, wondered if this was where he decided to take his pound of flesh from the world because there was nothing now. Nothing to tie him down.

"It's okay." Okay, yeah, but he recognized that look. A little wild around the eyes, maybe, and Will was familiar with it. "It's okay. It's..." He laughed, and that sound would be nice, warm, maybe, if it didn't seem so on edge. "I'm getting kind of used to being knocked around."

It made him smile, a quirk to the side, a hand still at the other man's side. He should've known he'd find another American. "I know that feeling. Hey, do you want a drink?" He was probably already drunk, bit Will didn't mind. Hell, he was just behind the curve.

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I've kinda already started. But we could continue together, if it's all right." There was something ridiculously familiar about that crook of mouth, as if he knew it. Maybe he just wanted to know it, and that was better than wanting to take him back to his hotel room and follow the instincts that had been creeping up on him for hours now. "I'm Greg."

"Greg, good to meet you. I'm Will." Seeing as they were standing that close, that much in contact, it was silly to try to extend his hand. It wasn't like finding a bar was going to be hard. There were probably ten between here and the nearest corner.

That was how they met.

It wasn't the end of the story.

 

He'd solved it.

The case had been fucked up, plain old-fashioned weird. Paul Millander a.k.a. Douglas Mason, and he'd had dinner at the guy's house with his wife and his kid. Chasing him had been a twisted path, and he couldn't have done it without a hell of a lot of coaching.

"Hey, congratulations." Nicky clapped him on the shoulder, grinning ear to ear. "I don't think they're going to let him get out."

"Yeah, well, I hope not anyway. The guy's kind of creepy is all. Finding him like that's even more creepy, especially after the coffee." And Greg knew from creepy. That was a long story, though, and it wasn't one he wanted to discuss. There were a lot of things he didn't discuss these days. It wasn't because he didn't want to talk about it. He wasn't ashamed of it. It was just because some things were his to have. His and nobody else's.

He liked to keep what was his just that. Partitioned off, safe and secure.

"He had us all hoodwinked. Guy made it up to traffic judge, and just..." Nick waved a hand a little, "You want to go out to breakfast?"

Greg was shaking his head before he even realized it. "Nah. I've been pretty wound up with the whole thing. I think I'll head on home. You know." Home was where he wanted to be most days. Not his apartment; he'd left it behind after The Bad Year, just like that, title case. It had been fucked up and wrong and a mess. He still had headaches sometimes that made him feel like he'd never get over having his brain rattle around in his skull like that. He'd sold all of his furniture, bought a house, bought all-new things so that he didn't have to think about any of it. "Thanks all the same."

"Okay. If you need anything..." Yeah, if he needed anything. If he needed anything, for all of the camaraderie, there was one place to get what he needed. Nick finished tying his shoes. "Seriously, congratulations."

"Thanks, Nicky. See you tomorrow night, yeah?" Yeah, because they were both on shift and he'd be back to start on another case. There was always another one and he was getting better at it every day.

Every day, and he wasn't the newbie anymore, he was Greg that Brass trusted when Greg got called out for his cases even if he thought Greg was silly and a screwball. Maybe that was finally fading. Someday, Brass'd look at him and not see a kid. "Tomorrow, yeah. Have a good day, Greg."

"You, too, man. Maybe we can do breakfast later in the week?" When he didn't want to go home so much, and right now, that was what he wanted.

He waved Nick off and headed out of the locker room, greeting a handful of others on his way out the door. He pulled out his cell phone once he got to the SUV and slid behind the wheel, flipping through the last numbers dialed and thumbing the call button.

~"You on your way home?"~ Yeah, that was what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that voice, the easygoing sound washing over him like water. It made him smile, his mouth curling up with the pleasure of it.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm on my way. We found him." We. Not him and Nick, or him and everybody on the shift. Him and Will, because they'd been working on it together. Will had the scent of it, and he'd been teaching Greg the science of it, except it wasn't science exactly. It was something else altogether.

It was fluid and it was sensory. Sometimes they went out on the city and Will picked out things, told Greg little secrets about people who walked on oblivious of what they were seeing. ~"What I'd give to see the look on his face when it fell into place. I'm making waffles, by the way. Should be done when you get home."~ It'd be waffles in his lunch the next night for snacks, too, sandwiched together with peanut butter.

'That sounds delicious." It did, too. Even cold and smeared with peanut butter. "I'll be home in about half an hour. You want me to stop by someplace and bring something home?"

~"Nah, we're okay for a few days."~ They'd need milk, but he could get milk and stuff when he wasn't so tired. The victory of a case never felt like the hand slapping high five he wanted it to be. Hardly ever.

"Okay. Be home in a bit, then." That sounded good, and he'd think about the way things had worked out so that he could tell Will about it. He'd want to know every step, want to know how he'd made the choices he'd made, the steps that took him along the way.

Then again, maybe he'd just want to eat waffles, and fuck. Some days it was like that. Will was a complicated kind of guy, but Greg was used to it, liked it. He was hard to predict, and his mind went hundreds of miles an hour sometimes, off on god knows what. He'd brought home a busted up dog that animal control would've shot on sight six or seven months back, and that seemed to have helped. Said he'd always had a weak spot for fuckups.

It explained why he'd stuck with Greg anyway.

The year they'd met had been bad in ways he could never define. It didn't need any explanation; just kind of a statement of occurrences. It had kicked off with Brass getting shot, and wow. That had sucked, but not quite as much as getting the shit beaten out of him had. Greg had pissed blood for a week, and that hadn't really touched the broken bones and head injury. It hadn't helped, but varying degrees of pain all added together into a fuckwad of hurt. Then there had been the crazy-ass miniature murderer, and the crazy lady who thought he was some kind of alien reptile and bit the shit out of him. The culmination of everything had been Sara's death at the hands of Natalie Davis, all because they hadn't been able to figure it out soon enough.

Back then it had felt like he never figured out anything soon enough.

Then he'd met Will. It was luck, a wild holiday in Rio, intent on figuring out what the hell he was doing wrong with his life. He'd felt guilty about taking the time, but once he'd realized who Will was, and what an opportunity it was...

There wasn't any walking away.

It wasn't that he wanted to take advantage of Will or anything; not that he was interested strictly because he was Will fucking Graham. He'd wanted to learn, though. It had been important that he figure out a way to save people he loved, and Will had been nice, he'd been interested. He'd looked at Greg funny, a little crazy maybe, but he hadn't been worried. Something about Will had made him relax, made him feel easy about things.

He still liked to keep Will to himself, though. He'd offered a usefulness to Will, and Will had needed that. He was just giving Will what he needed, so it wasn't taking advantage at all, and it felt good to come home.

Maybe he should feel guilty about it. Maybe he should be worried about himself, about the choices he'd made, about the fact that he didn't introduce Will to everybody he knew. Greg wasn't sure about that, about his potential guilt, about much of anything some days of the week. The two things he was sure about was the fact that the sex was damn fantastic, and that he really did love Will. Maybe that was beyond weird considering everything else. It was true, though.

When he parked in the driveway, he could see the front door open, Will standing behind the glass storm door, his ugly pit bull-golden retriever leaning against his leg. There was no stopping the smile that quirked at the corner of his lips, the way he perked up seeing him there. He got out of the SUV, snagging his kit before he shut the door and went to get his hello kiss, and probably dirty paws on his shirt, too. "Hey."

The hello kiss was more like a hello~o kiss, and it was possibly a pancakes and fucking day after all. Will settled a hand at Greg's waist, and they did the Greg putting his kit down while Will closed and locked the door dance.

He hadn't kept Will restrained with drugs or the handcuffs after that first dicey month.

Okay. So neither one of them was functioning on all cylinders. Greg had needed him to stay, had needed things to work out all right. He'd needed Will to tell him what he needed to know, and Will... Will had needed him to need that, so he had. He'd told Greg how to do it, to make it all work, when Greg had asked. He was pretty sure that meant it was all okay. That it made things work somehow, made it all right. "Mmmmm. Hey. I love it when you're at the door when I get home."

He laughed, still close to Greg's side while they headed past the living room, and he finally broke away. "So, tell me everything about the case. You can't leave it at 'We got him'."

"Over waffles?" Yeah, because he was kind of hungry, and Bob was panting and following along, looking like he was pretty interested in breakfast himself. "Well, you know most of it. Nick keeps twitching because it seems like we're following hunches, but... we got the DNA results back on the old hair and the newer one. That and we got an ashtray from Isabelle Millander. Her husband used his hand to make the impression. It matched the fingerprint from the hand, and the XX results from the female hair was a perfect genetic match to the newer one."

"Has he said why? I mean, articulated it himself." Will knew why, and had explained it, talking it out as he went, looking over the pictures, the case notes. He slipped into the kitchen ahead of Greg. It smelled like raspberries.

Greg shrugged, pausing to sniff before he settled into a stool on the bar side of their kitchen island. "He saw his father killed. Thought he could have done something about it if he was a he, and not a she. Confused home life. Fucked up, kind of. Catherine dug out the truth of it while we were out. He said something about confused biology when we were interrogating him earlier. Parents couldn't come to agreement about which gender they wanted their kid to be, so he was a girl at home, a boy out in the world. The dad dying was a turning point in a lot of ways."

"He was creating his own justice." Will sounded pleased, or at least satisfied. He ladled some kind of raspberry reduction over two waffles for Greg. Greg figured he saved on groceries purely from all the things Will could pull together out of scratch.

"Sometimes you're so brilliant I need to cover an eye. Just in case the light blinds me." It was maybe a little teasing, but maybe a little true, too. "Thanks for the help. I wouldn't have figured it out without you." And maybe they'd have lost somebody else.

They'd been back from Rio for not quite nine months when they'd lost Warrick. That still kind of fucked him up a little. No one had seen that coming, no one. It was a setup, a targeting, and the fact that it had been the undersheriff still hurt. Will hadn't been surprised, but he'd still been angry. "You know I like to help." Needed to, more like. He turned, handing Greg a heavy plate.

"Thanks." He grabbed his fork and started cutting his waffle with the edge. "I know. I like it when you help. Sometimes I feel kinda guilty. I mean, if you wanted, I could introduce you at the lab. I'm sure they'd like to have you." Meet him. Maybe. The trouble was, he was selfish. There wasn't anything wrong with being selfish, and Will was a natural recluse.

He looked thoughtful for a moment, before settling down with his own stack, while Bob looked hopeful. It detoured Will, and he went to dump dry food into the bowl. "I'll think about it. The FBI seemed to understand that retired meant retired this time, and only send me writing work."

And pension checks. That was good. Between what Will got from the FBI and what Greg made, the house payment was bearable, and they did okay. "Yeah. I'm grateful for that much." He nudged at Will a little when he sat back down. "I'd kind of miss you if you ended up chasing after the people in half of the files they send you." Plus, well. He'd worry. Will had no sense of self-preservation.

"Which may be why I'm not too keen on the idea of introducing myself to your coworkers. I don't want to be out there like that anymore." He looked thoughtful, withdrawn. "Then again, if something happened to you, I'd like to know."

Yeah. Him, too, and maybe they ought to think about that. Make some decisions.

Introduce Will to his parents. To Nicky, and he licked his lips after a bite of waffle that tasted incredibly good. "I'd like that, too." After all, they'd done all of the paperwork. Maybe it was wrong for everybody to find out about it only after one of them was dead. It wasn't like Will would leave him or he'd leave Will. They were attached now. Together. There wasn't any alone or in between anymore.

Will exhaled slowly through his nose, and his posture relaxed. Greg felt him bump his leg against Greg's under the table. "So, you have to be in to work what time tomorrow?"

There was coffee, and Greg took another bite of waffle before he got up to search for a cup. Bob was scrounging through his bowl, little bits of dry food clinking on metal. "Eleven. We don't have anything big on now that we caught Millander, but he's got a hearing first thing this morning. They bumped it up, considering."

"Is he representing himself?" Will tilted his head sideways, taking a bite of his waffle.

Dammit.

"Dunno. I'd have to call Catherine, see what's going on." He poured a couple of cups of coffee, brought them back to the island. "What makes you ask, exactly?"

"I would." Will chewed, leaning an elbow on the counter. "You get to come into the court in a suit, instead of shackles and orange. You cause a commotion, rig it, use it as a sleight of hand. Take the suit, take... Take..." Will squinted for a moment. "Take an ID, use the suit, slip out through security like you belong, hit the street, hail a taxi, direct yourself to an out of the way location, slit the taxi driver's throat when you go to pay, walk off."

Shit. Shit, and Greg saw it, saw Craig Mason taking that picture of him, saw the whole fucked up progression of things, one after another. A glance at the clock made him twitch. "We've gotta go. Court started half an hour ago. He'll be gone by now, somewhere." Anywhere, because what Will saw, it was almost always spot on. Greg was learning, but it wasn't fast enough. "I'll call and try to get somebody on the ball."

"You call, I'll drive." That was a scary thought, because Will had been a cop once, and he'd never given up driving tactically, or like he was in an episode of Dukes of Hazzard. He stuffed another half a waffle in his mouth, and started to stand up.

"I'll grab my kit." He was already flipping through his address book, dialing Catherine. Maybe she'd be there, wanting to be sure the guy got pegged for his crimes. While it dialed, he grabbed a couple of travel mugs, poured their coffee into them.

They moved quickly, a pretty good team, and once he had the mugs in hand Will was already out the door, starting the car. End of the day didn't matter; that Greg was off the clock didn't matter. That Bob would probably eat their food didn't matter.

~"Hello? Greg?"~

Catherine. "Hey. Hey, sorry. You need to send somebody to the courthouse, right now. Like literally right now. He's going to make a run for it, claim he's representing himself to go last."

~"Huh?"~

Okay, and yeah, that was his reaction, too, or would've been before Will. He locked the door, and hopped in the passenger side door. Will hardly waited for him to shut the door before he was reversing, getting them on the road. "Look. Just trust me, go. Send somebody to check on Millander. Mason. Get somebody out there, and I'll explain it later. We're on our way to the courthouse now."

~"We?"~

That was something he could explain later. "I'll explain later," he said again, and hung up.

Will had his foot down, and Greg halfway wanted to talk and halfway just wanted to shut his damn eyes and pretend they weren't outrunning clouds. "Time's it?"

"Quarter to nine." He'd been running a little over at the end of shift, there had been the drive home, the few minutes he'd actually spent at home, getting kissed, eating breakfast, pouring coffee. "Court was starting at eight thirty."

"Damn. When do they escort them from their cells? He's going last. That..." Will drummed his fingers on the dashboard, reaching.

"Both hands on the wheel." Because seriously, he didn't want to die before they got there. "They move them when they're getting dressed for court. Into a guarded room, supposed to be."

"What identifies them from the other prisoners?" Not fucking much, and he could imagine cutting it off, chewing it off, anything.

"A plastic band ought to identify him. Keep him from just walking out the front doors." Except he was crazy smart, and he'd managed to avoid them for years. It was maybe stupid to be chasing after him so soon, but Will knew shit. Sometimes, he just knew something, and Greg had learned it was smarter to chase it than ask questions.

There were a lot of things he'd never questioned. Things he wouldn't ever ask, because Will didn't want him to ask it.

Because Will might answer if he did.

"Consider it gone, then. He's taken it off with the jumpsuit. Or he will. When he gets out, he'll overpower the guard, outwit him..." And tidily walk out to his taxi-driver killing finale, but Greg knew it was going to go past that.

"Catherine's on the courthouse. I think we should go somewhere else." His mind was clocking over heavily. "Not the warehouse. That was, he's done with that. There's something bothering me..."

"Talk it out." Will started to speed less, like he was anticipating a change in direction.

Greg licked his lips. "The suicide note. I mean, they were all the same. Every time, and I think that's seriously significant. That there's something about that. He always said, I'd like to say 'I love you' to my mother. All of the suicide tapes had it. But he doesn't see his mother. She said Pauline was dead, that she came back a strange man. I think we need to go see his mother."

"Address?" It felt like Will was poised to take a middle of the road u-turn if he had to, but Greg rattled off the address and Will kept driving forward. Greg didn't know when he'd memorized the local area's maps. With Will, there was no telling.

He called it in on the way, so that hopefully nobody would pull them over and try to give them a ticket. Didn't mean it wouldn't happen; just meant that they'd have to hope for the best. "Think I ought to try getting hold of his mother?"

"If you're so inclined, give it a go." Will was probably going to run onto the lawn and throw himself in the way of danger, so if there was anything to do to avoid that...

"You're not going in first." Greg was adamant about that, even as he scrabbled desperately for his notes. He had the number in there, and he might as well double-check the address to be sure they weren't on a wild goose chase. "You got that? You aren't." Because Will had a history, and even if Greg had never asked why he was in Brazil, he knew.

He knew. He didn't have to ask, because after a while, he'd realized a guy had to be fucked up in the first place to have gone along with the coercive... whatever. Greg wasn't going to call it kidnapping. Redirected opportunity. "We'll see what's happening."

"You're not going in first." The repetition was sharp, and Greg didn't mean to sound so demanding. He also didn't want Will getting shot, and Greg at least could carry. "I can't. I can't..." He couldn't. "We'll stop the car first. I can't, if you..." It made it hard for him to think when he was stuttering over the idea of Will hurt, or. Or worse.

He couldn't.

"I'm, I won't. We'll go in together. You're not a cop, Greg. You're a CSI." Will kept driving, and oh god. Yeah, and Will wasn't a cop either, he was retired.

"But I've passed all of the requirements, and I just. I don't want you in the line of fire. You, I know you. I know everything about you, and I can't think, I can't..." He couldn't function. Will had wanted to come with him, more or less, had talked him through some of the process, had only wanted to be kept from going back to Brazil. He'd only wanted to protect him, and he couldn't function without him anymore. Maybe he should have just stayed in Rio, for whatever reason he'd gone. Not invested himself this way, but he had, and he loved Will, and he was maybe more fucked up than was good for either of them.

"Okay. It'll be okay." Will reached over, patted, hah! Patted his leg with his right hand.

Yeah. Maybe. And maybe they'd be lucky, and whoever got the callout would be there before they did, except they were getting close now. "It'll be the next right." And his sidearm was with his kit, so he dug down for it, hands shaking. Usually, his hands didn't shake. They hadn't in a long time, but just considering Will dead or gone from him hurt, and that was why Will was there with him, so neither of them had to face that.

"Right." He took it, easing back on the speed.

"Third left after that, and it's a yellow house." It wasn't the danger. Okay, nobody pointed guns at him as often as they did at Nicky for some reason, but he could handle that. They trained to handle that.

It was Will.

Will just sucked crazies to him like a magnet, like Batman, like... like Will. He grimaced, but Will took the third left, and Greg just needed to find a way to jam his seat belt. Something, anything, to keep him in the damned car, and okay. Maybe Greg kind of attracted crazies of his own, because maybe there wasn't any other explanation for getting the shit beaten out of him, getting sued into the dirt, any of that other shit, but there it was.

There he was, Paul Millander. Douglas Mason, getting out of the rear seat of a taxi, right in front of the house, and holy shit.

Will didn't screech to a stop, but there was no way to miss the sound of brakes, and then he shut the engine off fast, while Greg fumbled open the door. He was reaching for his handle, too, Greg heard it, but he would just have to hope and pray that Will didn't do anything jackass stupid. "Police! Get your hands in the air!"

"CSI Sanders. Not... quite police, is it?" He stopped, though, and that shout had the driver stopped cold in his seat, which was good. He was still alive, and that was pretty impressive.

"Maybe not, but I definitely have a sidearm, and the shot's lined up, Judge. I think it would be wise of you not to make any sudden moves.

"Or what? You'll kill me?" Greg kept walking forward, but he heard the door shut behind him, and oh god, Will was out of the vehicle. "You're not the killing sort, Sanders."

"No. But I don't have to kill you to slow you down. I don't want to kill you but I can't just let you get away, Millander." He kept the gun carefully aimed, a little low. "Will. Don't..." Do anything stupid, he wanted to say.

"I've got your back." He lingered back, and that was as far as he went, the predator behind his back. Maybe that would be enough, the sense of Will there, holding back, being all scary and Will.

"Make it easy on yourself. Just put your hands where I can see them." There were sirens coming closer, now.

He had his hands up in the air, and that was when Greg saw the shadow, the outline at his waistband where his suit jacket rode up.

"Will..."

"I see it." Yeah, it was hard not to see it, but they were holding still, and Millander wasn't moving. It wouldn't be much longer before the cars were there, and if maybe he prayed a little between now and then, it couldn't hurt anything.

He just needed no one to move. Not Millander, not Will, not himself. Just needed to maintain that tableau of quiet unmoving, and watch when Millander dropped his hands to rest behind his head. "Isn't one of you going to cuff me?"

Greg didn't look back. "Just keep your hands where I can see them. That's all you need to do."

The gun was there, though, and Will was drawn to it, and it made Greg's muscles seize up for a moment until he saw Will had some kind of handkerchief. He was going to pull the gun from Millander, get it away. Okay. That wasn't so bad, couldn't be, could it?

"Will..." It was half warning, half request. He didn't know which, and he didn't care, so long as Will wasn't hurt. If Will was hurt, shit would hit the fan, and Greg knew without a doubt that he would come completely unglued.

He shouldn't have said anything, because Millander torqued fast, pulled the gun out and had it pointed at Will, and Will just reached for it, threw himself at Millander like a complete lunatic, and Greg knew. He knew Will was fucking crazy, he'd read all of the press clippings, he'd paid attention for chrissakes, and there he was, about to get shot to hell and back.

No.

No, and he could feel himself coming unglued at the edges long before the passing milliseconds tightened his finger on the trigger. "NO!"

It was too much sound and too much noise and they were both down on the ground when Greg realized what he'd done. Both of them, and oh god, oh god, if Will was dead, if Will...

"Put your gun on the ground!"

And what the hell. What the fuck, they were too late, completely too late, and Greg thumbed on the safety and dropped it. "CSI! Get an ambulance here, now!" Now, and there was Isabelle Millander, stumbling through her yard, and fuck, fuck, fuck.

He wasn't supposed to, but he had to get to Will, see how he was, and never mind the lady who was looking at her dead son's body, because the kid was all kinds of fucked up anyway, kid, adult, bastard, and Will was sitting up, slowly, gasping.

"Don't. Don't sit up, you're..." He had no idea how messed up he was, because there was just blood everywhere, and Will, he, they, were made out of glass. That was why they'd hidden all this time, and he'd been mad, stupid, insane to bring him out like this.

Will was safer at home, making waffles, waiting for Greg at the door, and he was clutching at his shoulder, making noises at Greg. "'s okay, Greg, 's okay, it's just a wing, it's fine."

"It's not fine. It's not even close to fine, you're, we're... I shot you." And there were cops coming up, circling around him, somebody checking Millander, a hand on Greg's arm.

"Killed Millander," Will grinned, still clutching at his shoulder and Greg knew that his hand was covering the exit wound and that was a mess.

"Yes, but I..."

"Hey." Greg looked up, vaguely stricken. "Sanders, right? I'm gonna need you to get up. Come sit down over here with us for a while if that's all right." That was Mitchell, he was pretty sure.

Greg shook his head. "But I need to stay here."

"It's okay." That Will was telling him that, but there were paramedics leaning in and pushing Greg back gently.

"It's not okay." Not even close, but he let Mitchell push him back gently, and he was shaking all over. Christ. Oh, Christ. He'd shot Will. He'd. Shot Will, but Will was okay and alive and talking and he'd shot Will.

"Deep breaths, Sanders. You look like you're gonna hyperventilate."

Mitchell pushed him down to sit beside Will, and fucking hell. Fuck, fuck, fuck, and he realized he was chanting it now. "I shot you. It is not even remotely okay." He'd shot the fuck out of Millander, too, but that was taking a serious back seat.

"Ambulance is here." That was probably the sirens he'd heard coming closer, doppler effect loud as the sound built up and up and up in his ears.

He licked his lips. "Millander?" He should ask, shouldn't he? That was the normal thing to do, right? "Will. Are you sure you're... I shot you."

"It'll heal. Hey, he's shocky. Can you stick Greg in the ambulance with me?" Never mind that the EMT just starting to kneel beside him had no idea what was going on. Hell, Mitchell didn't know what Will was doing at their crime scene, except that Greg was talking to him so it must be okay.

The medic kneeling next to him looked up at the deputy, and whatever he saw seemed to make it all right. "Yeah. He's looking kind of green around the gills anyway."

Then things were moving fast, and someone was getting a stretcher out for Will and they were leaving Millander there on the grass while someone got Greg up by his arm. "C'mon, CSI Sanders. Best to get you looked at, too."

Yeah. Okay, yes, so long as it meant he was going with Will. "He had a gun. He was pointing it at Will, and I. I shot Will." And maybe he was going to puke, because what if it was bad? What if Will died, and yeah. Yeah. Okay. He hadn't puked at his first autopsy, so maybe he ought to be ashamed of that.

"Okay, your friend's name is Will?" The EMT herded him towards the back of the ambulance, and they only stopped while they loaded Will in.

"Yeah." Yeah, and why weren't they asking Will that question? Will couldn't answer, or... "Will Graham. Retired FBI." The guy was nodding along, like that meant something to him. Greg kind of doubted it. "I'm Greg. Is he gonna... I shot him."

"We know." He sat Greg down on the funny plastic cushioned chair, and turned towards a cabinet. Greg really wasn't expecting him to turn around and pop a pill out of foil to hand Greg. "Slip this under your tongue, and we'll get him taken care of quick, okay?"

"Yeah." Yeah, and he didn't used to be like this. Fucked up and weird, but there had been a hell of a bad year, and then he'd met Will, and maybe. Maybe they were kind of fucked up together, Greg thought, slipping the tab into his mouth obediently. It went melty in quick order, tasting vaguely of oranges

The ambulance started moving, the EMTs working on Will steadily, and he realized after several minutes that he was getting drowsy.

Shock, he decided, closing his eyes. Just. For a moment.

 

Getting shot never didn't hurt like all hell. All nine levels of hell, right down to icy and disassociated, because he'd been telling Greg it was okay, it was all right, when he knew damn well that he was bleeding out at a nice clip and that he could feel meat-pulp under his fingers. Greg'd been too close when he'd fired the shot, close enough that the bullet went right into Millander's chest from Will's shoulder, the tip already flattened and flared out from where it had crashed through Will's body, or so Will assumed.

He'd been in surgery or stabilization or he didn't know what, but he felt thick and half-awake and tired of staring at blue walls.

Mostly, he wondered where Greg was.

It wasn't all that surprising that he was missing, truth be told. Internal Affairs was probably asking questions, and that would go on for quite some time. It would probably make him twitchy if he wasn't on pretty good drugs. He was, possibly, a little twitchy, now that he was thinking about it. He hated hospitals with a passion, hated the smell, hated everything he associated with the place, and he hated being alone, and that was why he'd gone along with it, all of it, every crazy fucking moment to the present.

Now he just needed to work out how to find out where Greg was

The door pushed open lightly, and a head poked in -- an older man, going bald at the edges, revealed to be wearing a brown suit when he stepped inside. "Hey there. You're awake. That's good, real good. So, uh... you're Will Graham."

Will licked his bottom lip, watching the man. "Yes. Yes, that Will Graham." Showed up out of the blue, and he and Greg hadn't worked out what he was supposed to say. Closest to the reality seemed the best way to go.

He was a damned good liar when he had to be. "Huh. Y'know, funny thing about you being that Will Graham. I've known Greg Sanders for, like, ten years. Ten years, from back when he was just a kid, you know, skinny, running around in the DNA lab. Been working with him the last few years as a CSI, and the funny thing about it is that this guy, this guy I know really well... he's never mentioned your name before."

"He hasn't," Will agreed, trying and reaching for the words that might work best. "And, now it's complicated things, hasn't it?" He moved his good arm, the one that wasn't spreading burning fire, and pulled himself to sit up a little.

"Yeah, well, when a pretty famous chaser of psychopathic nutjobs shows up out of nowhere at a crime scene in Vegas, it does kind of bring a lot of questions to mind." The guy moved closer to the bed. "Mind if I take a seat?"

"Not at all, detective...? Brass, is it?" Just because Greg had never mentioned him didn't mean that Greg didn't mention them, hadn't talked endlessly about the shit that had gone wrong at his workplace during those first few weeks, enough that Will understood what they all meant to Greg.

"Huh." He blinked, looking at Will for a few seconds. "So, maybe I should just ask outright. How did you get to our crime scene, anyway?"

"I drove Greg there." It would've been more fun to deadpan that sentence at Brass if he hadn't been tired and in pain and groggy with drugs. "I was driving him to the courthouse, because we were discussing the case over dinner, and I suggested Millander was representing himself to buy the opportunity to escape. I was right, too."

"Yeah, you were right about that. So what led the two of you to go to Millander's mother's house if that was the case? I mean, there's something about the progress here from courthouse to mom's house that doesn't seem all that logical." Brass leaned forward. "It's probably what Internal Affairs'll be asking."

"I'm sure they'll be delighted to see me." He was a walking cause for audit in a lot of departments, or he had been once upon a time. "We talked it out while I drove. I suggested what his next moves would be -- hail a cab, direct the man to a distant place, slit his throat, walk away free and Greg picked up what I missed because it's not my case. The contents of the suicide letters all mentioned his mother. She was caught up in it, and Greg caught it, Greg caught the thread of that, and that's how we got there." Will inhaled, a little shakily. "Where is Greg?"

"Eh, well. He's down at the station. There were some questions that needed asking, and once the shock kind of wore off, we figured that maybe it would be good to get 'em out of the way." We, but somehow he figured it was less we and more IA.

"Any idea when they'll be done?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to see Greg, or if he just knew Greg would need to see him, and that was a strange balance they had. Will did want to see him, but overriding that was knowing that Greg was likely a wreck if how he'd been acting at the scene was any indication.

Brass looked at his watch, shrugged. "Should be sometime pretty soon. What I'm wondering is how long this has been going on, exactly? I mean, I'd like to think that maybe Sanders would tell us if he had a new... ah, hell. Whatever you are. I can't remember the last time he invited anybody over to his place, and I asked the accountant a couple of questions this morning. Seems like he moved a couple or three years ago. Didn't bother telling anybody, not even Nicky."

"You could say I followed him home from Rio." It was close enough to the truth, though he only half-remembered that. That whole stretch seemed foggy and distant.

"Jesus. Rio." Rio, and yeah. Brass seemed to register something there. It was no wonder. Will knew some of the things that had happened. Whatever had sent Greg to Rio he hadn't had any real intention of going back to Las Vegas. Not until after they'd had a pretty long talk, anyway, and then things had changed.

"Yeah. Rio feels like a lifetime ago." There was no way that Brass could know exactly what had happened. Will was confident that if anyone asked questions too hard, they were looking at him, not Greg. Irony of ironies.

Brass leaned back in his chair. "I gotta tell you. I didn't really think the kid would be coming back. I mean, he took a leave of absence, and after Sara... well. And so he does come back, but he comes back with you."

"Right. It was advantageous to both of us." He'd given off every sign of a pending suicide, looking back. Saying his goodbyes, giving away things that had meaning to him, selling everything else, taking off to Rio... to Hannibal.

Homicide, suicide, it was all the same difference in the long run, at least when it came to Hannibal. "Were you as fucked up as he was when you two got together?"

No punches pulled. "It's a safe bet. I'd bought a one way ticket." Will caught himself halfway to wanting to rub his shoulder, as if that would ease the pain.

"Here. Here, there's a button. For god's sake, use it." Brass was eyeing him. "So. I've gotta say, he's seemed better. At least until today, with the whole shooting two people and puking. I was at the kid's first autopsy, you know? He never flinched, but today messed him up."

"Have you ever shot someone you were sleeping with? I think messed up is on the normal scale of reactions." It was one more item to put on the list of things both he and Greg had done. It was still hard not to feel the rush that Greg was beginning to learn, starting to pick up on the trick of it, the intangible trick of following a suspect like Will did, and that rush mingled in a little with the painkillers when he pressed the button.

Brass gave him a funny smile. "Well, I've got an ex-wife, and the idea seems pretty nice in her case, but no. No." No, but whatever the case, he was suspicious of Will, and that was just funny. "You reckon Sanders will talk about you, since he's been avoiding it for three years?"

"We were discussing coming out over breakfast this morning. Well, dinner. Waffles." Tilt the angle a little, test it that way, make it an issue that Greg wasn't openly gay at the office, because he wasn't and Will knew that and that was another umbrella to stick it under.

Anything other than what it was, at least not aloud. "Yeah, well. Sometimes people have a hard time with accepting new facts about other people, but Sanders works in the lab. Most of those guys are curious enough and open enough about things that the likelihood of anything going south is... I'd say pretty damn small."

He wondered what they thought of physical and chemical restraints.

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty." He shrugged it, and hoped the silence and pain that rippled through him would get Brass to go.

"So. Will Graham, huh. That's something I wasn't expecting. I mean, I figured if the kid was into anything like that, he'd be dating Stokes or something."

No such luck, then. "Having never met Stokes, I can't make a judgment call on that. Given that I'm sleeping with Greg, I'm going to pretend you're not trying to piss off the man who just got shot."

Brass waved his hand. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that. Just, you know. You're a little older than him, and Nicky's... well, Nicky's probably gonna end up married to some kinda hooker next door type, 'cause he's a sucker for that kind of thing. I'm still back on the kid managing to keep quiet about it for the last few years."

All Will could do was look blandly back at Brass. "And moving without telling anyone. And getting better professionally because I've mentored him on how to look at things. And the dog. But he has."

"Yeah. None of that seems quite like him somehow. Anyway." He stood up, and thank God he was going to go. Will was kind of sleepy thanks to the morphine. "I guess we'll be seeing more of you from now on."

"Probably." He was a homebody, hah, and he liked it that way. He drank less that way, had a good structure to his life. "Tell Greg I'm okay. I'll see him when IA's done with him."

Hopefully, everything wouldn't be gone straight to hell by then. "Sure thing, Graham. Nice to have met you."

No it wasn't, but at least he was leaving and Will could rest. Maybe, just for a while, he preferred to be alone in his hospital room.

 

He'd talked to IA, talked to Catherine, made a damned appointment with the department shrink, and been told to go home. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

At least he wasn't going to jail. That was a small consolation for being told he'd be spending most of his time in the lab for a while. Then again, he was going to have to talk to psych, and right at the moment, he didn't figure that was going to come out that well.

He might end up in jail after all.

He hadn't... hadn't really thought through consequences for what he'd done with -- to? -- Will, and now he had to sort of circuitously explain himself, and he'd shot him, and. And. He was going to have to talk to psych, and he didn't even want to know where to start with that.

"Hey, Greg."

His head jerked up sharply, and it took a second for him to focus on Nicky. "Hey. I, uh. Sorry."

"Not sure what you're apologizing for. Rushing headlong into danger? Yeah, you probably need to apologize for that. I don't know what you were thinking. Again." Like he'd rushed headlong into danger with the gang who were killing tourists, and gotten the shit beat out of him.

"Sorry I didn't just wait for the deputies to get there. I was just. When it occurred to me, to us, we were talking about it, and I thought maybe... It just occurred to me." He stopped, licked his lips. "I just thought it. And so we went, and...." And he'd shot Will. Jesus. He'd shot Will.

And he'd just thought it. Will had said he had a knack for it, and maybe it was finally catching on after a lot of practice. "Yeah. IA's not happy, and a civilian was hurt, but I don't think he's liable to sue, which is what they're worried about."

Greg couldn't help the cracked laugh that bounced off of the lockers. "Will is, sadly, sickly, probably a little more accustomed to being shot than anybody else in the world. He'd... he wouldn't." Shot, stabbed, beaten hell out of. Will lived a dangerous life, until he'd come to live with Greg.

Until he'd made him come to live with him.

They'd worked that out, worked past that. He didn't think too long or hard about any of it, because those had been hectic days, full of the thrill of what he was doing and balancing work against breaking Will's will, and somewhere in there it had happened. Or Will had decided that someone who cared enough to take him home to keep him was good enough.

A or B.

"Yeah. How long have you been hiding him, Greg?"

His heartbeat skipped, sped up, just went fucked up and wild. "Um. A while, I guess." Around three years. "I met him that early spring, when I took a leave of absence. Went to Rio. He was... We were both screwed up. It's not usually a good sign, I guess, and so maybe I kept thinking... I don't know." Except he did, he really did. He was way more fucked up than he should be. Maybe he just should have spent more time seeing the department shrink, tried to get his head on straight.

It had been a long time since he'd had things together. He'd been together that morning, though, and the weeks before that and the weeks before that, because everything was good and comfortable and easy. "So he followed you home?" Nick was squinting at him.

Greg shook his head. "It wasn't like that. I mean. Not lost puppy like that. I... wanted him to come home with me." He'd been desperate for it. Will Graham was a legend in law enforcement for dozens of reasons. Maybe somebody else would have other motives, other things that interested them, but for Greg there was just one.

Will Graham was ultimately a survivor.

"And he did. And he's just... living with you?" Like Nick couldn't wrap his head around it, except it wasn't accusing, just curious. Catherine had stared with her eyes like there was something deeply wrong, and Greg half-thought she was going to the hospital to yell at Will. Like it was his fault. Like he was the one who'd started all of this, and not Greg. It made him sick to the core, thinking about it.

He breathed in and released it in a steady sigh. "Three year anniversary's coming up. Couple of months. I didn't... it was private. It's not Will's fault. I just. After everything that happened, I guess I wanted something for myself. Something that was safe from the things that go on around here."

"Okay." Maybe Nick got that. Nick had been put in a box under the ground because he worked there and Greg had been a lab rat when that kind-of sort-of girlfriend had been strangled by her pimp, and... and. "So, what's he do?'

Greg shrugged. "Cooks. Cleans. Feeds the dog. Writes an occasional paper, reviews stuff the feds send him. He's pretty much retired, for a while now. I mean, you know the name. I'm pretty sure that'd tell you why."

"I just wanted to check he wasn't doing anything..." Nick shrugged. "If you're happy, you know, I'm happy. You don't have to hide him from us, though."

Except he did. He had. Will wouldn't say anything. They were happy, right? They were. He was sure of it. "I wasn't hiding him, exactly. I just. It was nice. Having something, and he's..." Safe. Safe, at home, and he dropped his face into his hand.

"It's okay. I'm sure he's going to be okay," Nick promised, patting his shoulder as he sat down beside Greg on the bench instead of lurking closer.

"I shot him." Maybe he was a little fragile about it, damp around the eyes. "I just. Millander had a gun, and Mrs. Millander was coming out of the house and it all happened so fast."

"I'm pretty sure he's probably already forgiven you." Greg had done worse, hadn't he? To Will, technically, and Will just rolled on. "You stopped an armed escaped suspect."

"And I shot my boyfriend." Which sounded kind of weird. Partner, boyfriend, lover? One way or the other, he'd shot him. That was about sixteen steps left of yelling because he caught him drinking out of the milk carton. "I'm, ah." He sniffed, rubbed at his eyes. "I'm gonna head over to the hospital."

"How about you let me drive you over." It wasn't even a question, because Nick was sort of staring at him. It wouldn’t be the first time CSI had done the car dance with their parking lot.

Yeah. That was probably for the best, because he might have to quit if he kept the appointment with the shrink. "I'd appreciate it."

"Cath got you seeing counseling?" Ah, shit, shit shit. Nick would ask, Nicky'd gone enough times. He stood up, slowly, like he was waiting for Greg to get himself together to go.

He nodded, took Nick's hand when he offered it and let himself be pulled up from the bench. "She made me call before she'd go home. I'm not even sure she went home. I figure she might have gone to yell at Will instead."

"Right. Let's go save your live-in from meeting Catherine's bad side, then." Nick helped him to his feet, and Greg was just going to have to go. It was okay, because at least someone at work didn't think he was fucking insane.

It helped to have one of them in his ring. If the truth ever came out, nobody would be, and that was terrifying, down to the core of his bones. "Thanks, Nicky." Thanks, because what if Will said something? What if they investigated? Nick would never look at him like a friend again.

"Hey, you'd do the same for me." Mostly, though he was hard pressed to believe Nick would ever do anything like that. "Got everything?'

"Yeah." Yeah, because he hadn't really had anything with him, just Will and his kit. One of the deputies had brought the SUV back to the lab for him, and his kit was probably still in there. "Seriously, thanks. I'm just... I'm kind of a mess." Understatement of the year right there.

"Like I said, it's..." Nick started towards the door. "Understandable. And IA is going to be fine with what happened. You didn't do anything wrong."

Not today, anyway.

He followed Nick, hands shaking so badly that he put them in his pockets to hide it. It was better if nobody knew how badly the whole thing was fucking him up. Greg was aware that he wasn't exactly right in his mind, that he was maybe even completely bugfuck nuts, but showing it was something else entirely. "I shot Will," he said slowly as they walked out into the parking lot. "That's pretty damn wrong."

Nick sort of shrugged and patted his shoulder, because what did he say to a guy after that? Holy crap, you're creeping me out? Yeah, you shot Will. Yep. Uh-huh?

The drive to the hospital was short, mostly filled with chatter and pretty weird music from one of the local stations. Nicky let him have his peace and quiet, at least insofar as making him talk about it went. He spent the better part of the drive staring sightlessly out the window, wondering when he'd moved into a Poe short story and stopped making sense. Stopped being the good guy he thought he was and started being crazy enough to do what he'd done to Will, and Will didn't even care. So why was it fucking with him now?

"Hey, Greg? We're here."

"Huh? Oh." Oh, Desert Palms, and Nick was parking. He ought to have been paying more attention. "Sorry, man. I just..." Yeah.

"I'm taking you home after this." It was half a threat, while Nick popped the door open and stood up. "You're wiped."

Mostly just fucked up and worried and stupid. Amazingly stupid. "I'm okay. I'm just... fucked up." In ways and ways and ways. "C'mon. I'll introduce you if he's awake."

"Hell of a way to meet your boyfriend." Nick was waiting, shadowing him every step, locking the door only once he was out of the car and hadn't shut his leg in the door or whatever stupid thing Nick seemed to be waiting for him to do.

Greg let his mouth tilt a little. "Yeah, well. It's not that I was ashamed of you guys, or Will. It was just... kind of private. This thing with us... It's been something to keep me grounded." Made him feel like part of his life was safe.

"Grounded from what?" From work, from the way things had gone for him for so damn long. From people he cared about dying, or being hurt, and that had worked out so very well for Greg. He'd shot Will. Hell.

He shrugged. "Dunno. After everything that happened with the kids in the alley, the lawsuit, Sara. After that, Warrick... just, it made things hard. For a while. Will's good to go home to after bad days. After good days."

"I never thought you'd settle down like that." Nick's mouth quirked a little, while they passed into the hospital lobby. "So, he cooks for you, and house-husbands, and whatever odds and ends he picks up."

"More or less, yeah. Less house-husband. Or maybe not. I don't know. I think we're happy." But what if they weren't? What if Will wanted to leave or things were fucked up now? He'd fall apart. Well, he'd go to prison and he'd fall apart.

He might fall apart on the way to prison. He just had to get up the elevator to be sure, and he needed to see Will to see if... well, if there was a cop waiting up there to take him away. "Good."

"It's not just convenient or anything. I mean." He loved Will. A lot, and he thought it was mutual, except there'd been that period of drugs and being cuffed to the bed. "It's more than that. I think."

Nick hit the button for the fifth floor, so obviously he already knew where to go. "Well, it's been three years. That's... that takes a level of commitment," Nick shrugged. "None of my girlfriends have put up with me for that long."

That wasn't on Nicky, though. Well, not exactly, anyway. He kind of had shit taste in appropriate women, although Greg got that. Kind of. "You're a good guy. A lot of the girls you date probably don't know what to do with a man who's, you know..."

"Boring?" Nick laughed, rocking back on his heels as the elevator started to move.

"Actually a good guy, more like. I mean, they're probably more accustomed to assholes and the kinds of guys who call up for them like it's Chinese and they're on the menu." He shrugged. Once upon a time, he'd been a good guy.

Maybe he was a good guy again.

"One day." It was almost wistful, and Nick hung back to let Greg out of the elevator ahead of him.

Will was in room 537, and he moved ahead, nerves jangling more tightly with every step. He couldn't help hurrying, a little faster with every second until he got there and stopped, full-force. He wasn't sure if he wanted to open the door or not, except Nick was behind him, and that was awkward if he stood there for any length of time.

One deep breath, and he reached out, pushed it open slowly, and hoped. Hoped that things weren't going south, that Will would still love him, that things weren't crazy fucked up now, and he'd be able to make things make sense, in his head and out of it.

Will was propped up on pillows, looking a funny mixture of groggy and alert, despite or because Catherine was in there, half-turned around to see who was coming inside.

"Greg, save me from your coworkers. They think I'm, I don't know."

He couldn't help himself. He smiled, an automatic response, and moved closer to the bed to sit in the chair that rested near the head. "Yeah, well. You aren't. Maybe I am, considering I'm the one who shot you. What'd the doctors say?"

"That his shoulder is going to heal, but Greg, how did you... why haven't we heard about this before?" Den mother of them all, and boss. Possibly it was better if he didn't utterly cross her.

Probably. "Funny. Nicky asked the same question." Yeah, and he reached out, held Will's hand, and things seemed okay. Seemed not bad, anyway, considering how they could be. "I just... wanted something for myself after everything that went bad a few years ago. Somebody to come home to, a safe life, maybe." And Will had wanted to be kept, in the end. That was the reason he'd gone to Rio in the first place like some kind of lunatic.

He wanted to be kept, and maybe that could do away with some of his guilt.

"And I like it when things are quieter." Will stretched his fingers. "So, Catherine, if you're done grilling me."

The guilty glance she darted at Greg said it all. "We're just concerned about Greg. You've sort of appeared from out of nowhere. It's only natural that everyone would be interested enough to ask a few questions."

"And I understand that. I've, this is partially my fault. I've kept a low profile because of my history. I like things being quiet." Will shrugged a little. "I step outside and manage to get myself shot, which is pretty impressive."

"Which is me fucking up." Greg licked his lips. "Will. I'm sorry. I never meant..." Any of it. None of it, at all. He just wanted Will to be home with him. Safe. And he'd shot him.

Nick cleared his throat. "Hey, Cath. Why don't you and me go down and get something to eat?"

She frowned briefly, and mouthed something, but it seemed like they were leaving. "Greg, do you want anything?" She started towards the door again.

He looked at Will, tilted his head. "Maybe some fruit. Cup of coffee. You want anything?"

"Coffee'd be good." He glanced over at Catherine for a moment, and gave her a smile that made Greg want to laugh. It was smarmy a little, said a lot of things without saying anything at all.

It was enough, maybe, and he reached over, stole Will's hand to hold as they walked into the hall, shutting the door behind them. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself." He tilted his head a little, eyes sliding over Greg. "I was worried when Brass said you had to talk to IA."

That had definitely been a joy. "I was a lot more worried about the part where I shot you, if you want me to be honest. And, you know. They kept asking questions." He dropped his gaze, feeling tentative, guilty. "Maybe I should have introduced you sooner. Done more. Done less."

The other side of Will's mouth curled up, but his eyes were contemplative. "We're kind of fucked up, if you want to be honest about it. But I like it."

Greg ducked his head, looked down at their clasped hands. "Will. I... maybe I should have just asked. Maybe... maybe a lot of things. Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I was going to kill myself. I think you knew that." Will stretched his fingers; thumb sliding over the tendons at the back of Greg's hand. "And you, we sort of exacerbated each other, but I hadn't wanted to fight and live in so long."

Yeah. Yeah, he'd known that, and the idea of it had screwed him up even more, which was pretty remarkable considering how he'd been at the time. "That's all I wanted. Everything else... it was just cherries on top."

"We're shit at talking about this." Will sounded amused, hand still moving slowly. "But. Just to put it out there, I like our relationship. Doesn't matter how it started. Put it out of your head."

"But what I did. What we... Are you sure?" He'd spent enough time worrying about it, on the edge of jumping out of his skin all day long. He had to ask.

"You really think if I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have called the cops on you a long, long time ago?" Will pulled his hand back from Greg's a little, and folded his thumb in towards his palm, like he was demonstrating something to Greg. "I got out of the cuffs all the time. And back into them."

His breath huffed out in a shivery sigh, sinuses stinging sharply. "I've been freaking out about it all day. Feeling guilty. I just. I just wanted you to be safe. Not dead. And definitely not having been shot by me."

"It was an accident. Get up here, my reach is crap right now." Will moved his good hand again, reaching to pull Greg close. He got out of the chair and crawled into the bed, careful of Will's shoulder.

Careful of everything. "You know I..."

"I know. I love you, too." He kissed him, looping his good arm over Greg, and that was enough. No more wondering, because Will could always have walked away, and he hadn't.

That made it better.

That made it all right.

That made them everything.


End file.
